


Shipwrecked

by glitzbot, roundandtalented



Category: Homestuck
Genre: HSWC, Illustrated, Injury, M/M, Sickness, Vague Sex, round 1- Propaganda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 10:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitzbot/pseuds/glitzbot, https://archiveofourown.org/users/roundandtalented/pseuds/roundandtalented
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All you wanted was to look, you foolish troll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shipwrecked

**Author's Note:**

> [Mandee](http://wwizarderi.tumblr.com) and I's Round 1 entry for team Eridan♥Sollux c:

All your life, you’ve been told to stay away from the surface in case of landdwellers. Seatrolls would whisper horror stories at gatherings, tales of friends and quadrantmates being scooped up, tortured and killed by trolls who lived outside the ocean. How they were ruthless murderers who couldn’t be trusted, and you had to train every day so that one day, should you happen upon one, you could kill them. They were monsters, so you had to be twice as monstrous in battle.

And you believed every word of it. Gobbled it up like dessert. You listened intently to everyone’s tales, horror stories and folklore. There were ones who could fly, with giant wings, ones who could control your mind, and ones who could move things without touching them. Magic, even. They could curse you, kill you, with the blink of an eye and you’d never know what hit you. Even the less powerful ones could travel across the oceans by boat, and the skies by mechanical expertise. They were fascinating. You needed to know everything. You wanted to be better, needed to know you could defeat one. You wanted to be a hero for dragging one down to the depths one day.

You were just barely eight sweeps when you finally encountered one entirely by accident.

The weather had been horrendous all week, and after a brutal storm that had kept you and your neighbors in the deep dark caves for two nights, you’d headed out to bring home some much needed dinner. You noticed debris gently floating in the water above you. You’d always been curious of shipwrecks and collecting old landdweller artifacts had entertained you when you were younger, but this was your first experience with a recent one.

You followed a line of rope to where the reef came to a point. Boxes and hunks of ship littered the sands and coral around you; among the pieces you find clothing, rippling with the waves and moving as you fluttered your fins. You scooped some into your arms, soft and light, nice to the touch. They were perfect compared to the tatters you had acquired from previous sunken ships.

A splash alerted you as you watched something shimmer down into the reef, a thin line attached to it. While your first instinct was to go to it, you’d been warned. A trap for fish, bait to lure in a meal. Someone was casting a line, and that someone was above the water. Trying to quell your excitement, you checked for any other lines around you and found none, then swam to the rocks that rose skyward, up out of the water.

You see his horns first, bright, just like yours, atop a head full of curls. Even as the first of the days light hits him, he tucks up closer to the rocks. You can see him shivering.

This landdweller isn’t large or fearsome looking. In fact, he hardly looks older or bigger than you. You can’t help but be curious. He’s shipwrecked, no doubt. When he finally walks to the edge of the rock, it’s with a limp. His one pant leg is torn off at the knee and you can see the gash that travels up his shin. It needs stitches.

He tries to bandage it while reeling in fish with his psionics- you’s gasped when you first see the sparks, and it occurs to you that you’re wasting your day away just watching him struggle to exist.

[](http://s1138.photobucket.com/user/caitbmw/media/propagandacolor2small_zps59570825.png.html)

So far, he’s nothing like the stories. Part of you wants to wait around and see if he is. See if he’s as horrifying and monstrous as you were warned, but you have mouths to feed.

You grab a few fish and swim home as fast as you can, terrified and intrigued at the same time. You dream about him that night, and can’t help but return to the reef the next morning.

 

When you first peek out over the water, it’s bright and nearing noon. You can’t see him, only his flimsy shelter made of boat scraps. You dip back in and head to where you’d seen him fishing the day before but he’s not there. The ground is mussed up like he went digging around for crustaceans, but otherwise the place seems deserted. Concerned he managed to drown himself, you decide to move to the bottom of the rocks to see if that’s where he’s ended up. Except you don’t quite get there.  
The water around you whirls, slips through your fingers and you feel rope scrape against your legs. And then there’s no water left, only air and bristles digging into your gills like knives. You gasp, trying to force your body to convert air to oxygen like you know it can, but you hit the surface of the rock like a limp fish. And you suppose you are, in this instant, a captured fish, flailing in a net a few feet from water.

You shout, you’re not sure for whom. Your voice is hoarse, throat sore and you feel winded. It’s the makeshift spear at your throat that silences you.

He has you. The land dweller has you.

All the stories of torture and death flood back. He’ll rip at your gills, cut your webbing, tear off your ear fins, leave you out of the water until you die. He’ll cook you like a fish and eat you, because to him you’re just like them. You’re a delicacy and you’ve been caught in his net.

And all you wanted was to look, you foolish troll.

He glares at you, those solid eyes narrowed, teeth bared sharp and menacing. He’s going to kill you. Purple tears flood your eyes and you cry, curled up in his net and with a spear pressed against your neck because this is it, this is your end. No one will even know what happened to you, you’ll just disappear.

You cry until you have no tears left, only dry heaves and sore gills that have been dragged on rock and rope. But the second you open your eyes you are confused. His spear is lowered, his mouth slack. There’s recognition in his eyes along with worry.

“Please,” you beg him, because he’s your age- you can see him clearly now, you know he is. “Please don’t kill me. Let me go.” The other sea-dwellers you boasted to as a young troll, told you didn’t fear land-dwellers and would take one on if given the chance- they’d be laughing at you now.

He swallows and sits down on a rock near you. You’re too tangled in the net to get out and even if you could, you’ve seen his psionics. He could stop you easily. Shock you, even.  
“Please, I won’t tell anyone you’re here!”  
He frowns at you.  
“I can’t.”

You know he can’t. You wouldn’t trust you either. You _would_ tell someone else, you _would_ come back with an army. You’d have him killed, because he’s a landdweller and a monster, even if he doesn’t look it.  
“Please! I don’t want to die!”

He looks away from you, a hand in his hair as he worries at his lip. He’s thinking and you worry that it’s how he’ll keep you from talking. Will he cut out your tongue? Zap you till you’re brainless? What if-  
What if he kept you? There are worse things than death.

You have no energy to struggle when he drags your net to the center of the rock island. You try to help him even, by moving as best you can on your knees. He pushes you into a pool in the cracks of the rocks. It’s shallow, only to your waist when standing, but it’s water, and you feel ten times better despite the weight of the netting.  
You lay there, halfheartedly hoping you’ll forget to breathe and just drown yourself. That would be better, you think, than what the landdweller will do to you.

He returns with shackles. You know what they are; you’ve explored enough ships to know they hold prisoners. They’re damaged though, and he uses his weak psionics to weld one around your wrist, and the rest of it to a chain he has looped against what appears to be the remnants of the ship that he’s been hiding in.  
When he cuts the netting, you do your best to fight him. You don’t get far. He throws you into your pool with his psionics before slumping to the ground, tired and agitated.  
“Would you fuck off! I’m not going to kill you!”  
You spit and hiss and try to smash the metal cuff on your wrist but it won’t budge, so you sink into the water best you can and stay there.

You hide in your pool of water until the sun starts to set. Your stomach is empty and you can see the light of his fire dancing across the surface. It’s enticing to say the least.  
His eyes are on you the second you poke your head out, bright glowing orbs in the fading light. He has jars strewn about the rocks, collecting fresh water on their glass with the heat. He’s smart, you’ll give him that much. The glass catches the fire’s light, shining around the island and showing you how much work he’s done.  
He’s made a home of the ship pieces, strapped them together with sails and rope. It leans like it’ll fall over.

“Are you hungry?” He pokes at his fire, moving the fish he has stuck on sticks.  
“No.” Your stomach gurgles.  
“I promise I’ll feed you.” He has a mouth full of teeth that get in the way of his words, mangles his ‘s’s. You can sympathize- you’ve always had trouble with w’s and v’s.  
“No.”  
He sighs, shifting on the rock he has perched himself upon.  
“You’re just being stubborn.”  
You know but you don’t care. You’re not taking food from the likes of him. You’re not going to eat like some sort of pet.

He tosses you an uncooked fish and you refuse to look at him while you scarf if down. You hate that you’ve lost when you hear him chuckle.  
“You’re not the sort of monster I was warned about.” He says, chin in his hands across the fire pit. “Much less fearsome.”  
“Hey!” You toss a dried up urchin in his direction and he laughs. “Fuck you, I’m plenty fearsome!”  
He snorts, you pout.  
“Yeah well, you’re not exactly some landwellin’ horrorterror like I was told you’d be either.”  
He blinks at that, perplexed.  
“Really? A horrorterror?”  
You look up from the fishbones in your hands, head cocked to the side.  
“Yeah. You landdwellin scum are all uncivilized, torturin beasts. You eat seadwellers like we’re the same as fish an you’re gunna mangle my fins before you off me.” You find yourself wrapping your arms around your middle, hands covering your gills. “Everyone says it’s in your nature to be cruel an to destroy.”  
His eyes are wide though, lips parted and breath stilled.  
“You’re… You’re serious.”  
“Dead serious.”  
“Where did you hear that?”  
“Everyone says it. It’s just fact, isn’t it?”

He shuts his mouth then, won’t meet your eyes as he considers your words.  
He finishes his meal in silence, but leaves the fire going after he limps off to his hut. You suppose it’s in hope another ship comes by, but you know it’ll be a few days yet before any landdweller would attempt to set sail on these waters.

You don’t sleep. You consider sneaking into his hut and killing him only once, because you know it’ll take his psionics to melt the metal cuff back off your wrist.  
When he emerges the next morning, you can tell he’s gotten worse. His limp more pronounced. You watch as he removes his bandage to inspect his wound.

It’s not healing correctly. While there’s no clear sign of infection, the skin around it is irritated, and refusing to close up. His mustard blood has seeped into the bandage and he tears off a piece of sail to make a new one.  
You have to consider the fact that he may die before you do. 

“Five days.” He says, to the ocean, not to you. “It’s been five days on this goddamn island. If I can make it that long, I can make it until a ship comes by.”  
You don’t want to tell him how infrequent ships are in this area. You don’t care that he could eat you today if he wanted, you know he has a likely chance of dying out here and you pity him for that.

He feeds you again, but doesn’t talk much. You learn about him from his behaviors, though. His mood swings are frequent- you can tell when he suddenly scowls at nothing. He gets headaches and has to lay down in his makeshift bed. He misses someone. You know he does because he sighs and looks at the ocean or the sky.  
He sits with you by the fire, you think because he wants company. You understand. This island would be pretty lonely if you weren’t here, even then, you know you’re not the kind of company he wants.  
“I’m not going to kill you.” He promises you, and gives you half a crab he’s cooked. “You’re not a monster.”

All you do is nod and take what he gives you.  
“I wish I could set you free.”  
He’s got his chin in his hands when he says it, quiet and apologetic. It scares you how much you believe him.

It’s his 7th day on the island when you decide to explore his home. He lets you, doesn’t even give you warning looks like he did when you went to touch his tools by the fire.

He has a bed you could see from the doorway, a table, a chest, and a box of opened candles. There’s gadgets strewn around the room. Water damaged maps stuck to the walls, pictures, trinkets… He’s collected everything he can reach from the shipwreck.

You sit on the edge of his bed. There’s clothing, tossed haphazardly in the corner, and it tempts you. It’s dry, silky, soft. You want to wear it but… You forgo the shirts due to your wrist shackle, but manage to find a pair of pants that fit you.  
He laughs when he walks in.  
“What?”  
“You!”  
You huff and sit back down. “Nothin wrong with tryin them on.”  
“Have you never?”  
“A course not!”  
He smiles at you, a smirk really, but still pleasant.  
“Those are yours then. I’m too thin for them anyways.”

You help bandage his leg that night, and he instructs you on the how’s and why’s of keeping his leg alive. He tells you he’s worried it will kill him. You don’t tell him you are too. You should be worrying for your life, but the knot in your stomach has loosened with his kindness.

At ten days he can hardly get to his fishing spot. He has little to no psionic use left- its energy related, he explained.

You collect what you can reach while attached to your chain, and offer your catches to him. He hadn’t been expecting that, and he cries sitting next to you at the fire that night.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers, eyes half lidded as he thumbs the cuff on your wrist. Its dug into your skin in some places, rubbed raw in others. “I wish I could let you go but you’d tell other seadwellers. You’d have me killed.”  
You’re not sure you would.

On the 11th day, he doesn’t get to his fishing spot. He doesn’t get past your little pool. He looks tired and sore, there’s less of a spark in his eyes. He can’t fish, so you collect for him again and make sure he eats the majority of it instead of you.

That night he leans on you, worn and hurt. You don’t care that you’re his captive (it’s not like he wants to keep you), you feel sorry for him. You’re sorry that his leg is getting worse. You’re sorry his body can’t take the strain. You’re sorry he never had the energy to fly himself to shore with his psionics. You’re sorry he got shipwrecked at all.

You say none of this, yet he gently takes your hand in his.  
“Stay still.” His voice is sweet, even with his awful lisp. “I’m taking this fucking thing off.”

You’re horrified as he uses the last of his psionics to burn the cuff in two. You never thought freedom could be scary but it is, because now you have a choice to make.  
“It doesn’t matter if you tell other seadwellers,” He reasons as he rests his chin on your shoulder. You can wear a landweller shirt now, you think. The sun will be less brutal on you that way. “I’m going to die anyways.”

“No,” your voice wavers as you admit to yourself, you don’t want him to die. “I won’t tell anyone.”  
“At least then I could go out with a fight.”  
“No! Someone will come! Someone will see the fire!”  
“It’s been eleven days. And not a single ship. It’s been fools hope from the start.”  
You clutch his hand because you don’t know what else to do. You can’t bring any medic from below and you can’t heal him yourself.  
“Someone will find us.”  
You help him to bed, and it’s there as you lay with him, that you tell him your name.  
“Eridan?” His eyes are half lidded with sleep, but he smiles at you now. “It’s nice. They always said seadwellers had mean names, but yours is nice.”  
You shrug at him and he chuckles.  
“I’m Sollux. With an s. Sol.” He still mangles the sound but you understand.  
“Sollux is a pretty okay name too.” You tell him, and he moves a little closer to you in the mess of wadded up sail.

You lay there with him until he falls asleep. You keep the fire burning, and just before the sun rises, you decide you’ll stay.  
He doesn’t leave his bed without help after that. He still has bodily functions, so you have to get over any initial embarrassment quickly.  
The only improvement is the meals you can now catch for him. You bring him back large, healthy fish and he instructs you from where he sits in bed on how to cook them.  
He starts getting warm, in temperature not attitude. If anything his fuse gets shorter with you but you understand. If your leg was dying, you’d be cranky too.

You light as many candles as you can at night. Sollux tells you about life on land, the cities, the people, his hobbies. He’s amazing and it’s all so exciting to you but he tells you it’s boring and awful. That’s why he was on a boat to begin with, to get away from it all.  
You try to tell him about seadweller cities and how you’re considered a nobleman but no one remembers because you’re young and foolish. All in all it feels like you come from a barbaric culture who thinks everyone else’s way of life is wrong. He laughs when you say this, saying he feels the same about his people too some days.

It’s in the early hours of the fifteenth morning that Sollux wakes you. You hadn’t realized you fallen asleep curled up next to him. He’s too hot. You fetch him water from the glass jars and lay a wet rag on his forehead. You strip off most of his clothes and try to make him comfortable.

The moment he settles, you clutch his hand. His fingers are so thin compared to yours. There’s no webbing between them and his bones look crooked in places like someone had stomped on them.  
Someone probably had, from what he told you of his life.

You bring his knuckles to your lips and hold them there, you’re not really sure why at first. It feels nice, you suppose. He struggles to sit up and, despite your protests that he not strain himself. Sollux pulls you to him, so that you’re crouched over his aching body, and tangles his free hand in your curls. His fingers press at your horns, eyes barely open as he examines you with a thoughtful gaze.

Then he kisses you and you’re just as warm as he was earlier.

Sollux presses against you in the best way, but lets you lead the motions. You know what you’re doing. Landdweller or not, you’re both the same downstairs. You work the same, gasp the same. Both your names are whispers and neither of you worry about breaking any taboos. It’s just the two of you in a makeshift bed, on a tiny rock island; defying all propaganda you’ve ever been fed. He has the gall to chuckle after it all too, because no one ever told him sea-dwellers could do _that_ so sweetly.

It’s his 20th day on the rocks when you’re sure you’re going to lose him. He’s hardly conscious. His leg is killing him and you don’t have the knowledge to fix him.

You hold his hand in both of yours and hope with all your might that tonight someone sees the fire you have burning outside because you’re nearly out of wood.

It’s so late it might be the 21st day, but you’re roused from sleep by a voice that doesn’t belong to Sollux. You grab your spear from the bedside and call back to them.  
“We’re here!”  
We. You’d thought about this and it still scared you. You were putting yourself in danger to save Sollux. Landdwellers and seadwellers don’t normally mix, and if your rescuers realize what you are, you're likely to end up like all the stories.

“We need a medic!” You call to the light in the water. A small row boat stops at the edge of the rocks.  
“Are you shipwrecked?” The voice is gruff but concerned, so you nod as two trolls climb out. “It’s his leg,” you insist, and they don’t look twice at you, they just carry Sollux. “It’s been twenty days.”

They take you to their ship. It’s massive and you’re terrified, but they have a medic on board. She promises you Sollux will make it, yet you refuse to leave his bedside.

You cry when Sollux wakes up an hour later and he teases you about it for a week. The ship’s crew doesn’t ever let it go, especially not after they adopt the two of you into their ragtag group who really don’t stand for tall tales outside of fishing stories

**Author's Note:**

> it feels real clipped to me, because we had a word limit, but i'm not sure I saved it before I trimmed it down so much ;n; 
> 
> let me know if you find any errors!


End file.
